A Strange Story Page #4

"A Strange Story" is a novella by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev that explores themes of existentialism, the nature of love, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around a chance encounter between the protagonist, a young man named Vanya, and a mysterious woman, which leads him to reflect on his own desires and the intricate workings of fate. Turgenev's lyrical prose and keen psychological insights create a rich tapestry of emotions as the characters navigate their intertwined fates, ultimately uncovering deeper truths about their lives and the world around them. The story encapsulates Turgenev's characteristic exploration of the human condition, blending elements of romance and philosophical introspection.

• Novel

								

seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ...
appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping
breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a
sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct
shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his
warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with
the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got
up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the
blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both
arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice
said, 'Tea!' Mastridia Karpovna--how she came there I can't say--flew to
him and saying: 'Vassinka! Vassinka!' began anxiously wiping away the
sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point
of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending
voice cried: 'Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for
Christ's sake!' that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son.
'Bread-winner, darling,' she murmured soothingly: 'you shall have tea
directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at
home!' she shouted after me.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt
tired--even weak. 'Well?' Ardalion questioned me, 'have you been? did
you see something?'

'He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I'll own, I had not
anticipated,' I replied.

'He's a man of marvellous power,' observed Ardalion, carrying off the
samovar; 'he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.' As I
went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I
fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man
doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means,
which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked
within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I
was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes....
Such 'metastases,' such transferences of sensation, are recognised by
science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such
effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. 'Say what
you will,' I thought, 'I've seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!'

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia's
father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with
his daughter. At ten o'clock I was standing by her side in the middle
of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing
to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to
the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there;
the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first
place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it
had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes.
I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of
sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in
them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with
constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent
her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to
get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure
could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a
black ribbon.

I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers
were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same
expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met
her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her
appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually
fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they
seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with
something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last,
how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the
previous day.

       *       *       *       *       *

She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had
expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was
not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him
'Vassinka.' 'Yes, his name is Vassily,' I answered; 'do you know him?'

'There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,' she observed; 'I
wondered whether it was he.'

'Saintliness has nothing to do with this,' I remarked; 'it's simply
the action of magnetism--a fact of interest for doctors and students
of science.'

I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism,
on the possibility of one man's will being brought under the influence
of another's will, and so on; but my explanations--which were, it is
true, somewhat confused--seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie
listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying
motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her
fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from
a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own
convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot.

'You can hardly admit miracles!' I cried.

'Of course I admit them,' she answered calmly. 'And how can one help
admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain
of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need
only have faith--there will be miracles!'

'It seems there is very little faith nowadays,' I observed; 'anyway, one
doesn't hear of miracles.'

'But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is
not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...'

'The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,' I interrupted.

'The beginning of faith,' pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, 'is
self-abasement ... humiliation.'

'Humiliation even?' I queried.

'Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption--that is what must be
utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will--that's what must be broken.'

I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such
sentences.... 'My word, the child's in earnest, too,' was my thought. I
glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and
I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at
me sympathetically, as though he would say: 'Well, what do you think of
our queer young lady? every one here knows what she's like.'

'Have you tried to break your will?' I said, turning to Sophie again.

'Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,' she answered in a
dogmatic tone. 'Let me ask you,' I began, after a brief silence, 'do you
believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?'

Sophie softly shook her head.
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